Milo Yiannopoulos is escorted by police officers after speaking during a free speech rally on 24 September 2017 in Berkeley, California.
Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

You’ve probably seen the footage: Milo Yiannopoulos crooning an off key version of “America the beautiful”, while, in the background, white nationalist leader Richard Spencer and sundry other preppy goons smirk and give the Hitler salute.

Ignore him, they say. The man’s a provocateur, a publicity hound who thrives on the outrage he generates. If we respond – particularly, if we demonstrate or protest – we’ll be giving him what he wants.

In general, bad things don’t disappear when we close our eyes. Historical experience shows that, if they’re not confronted, rightwing extremists flourish, using their meetings and marches to recruit and intimidate.

That’s why the call to ignore them generally comes from people casually confident that they won’t personally cop a beating from boot boys rallying in the area.

Yiannopoulos, though, poses a somewhat different problem.

He’s not a traditional activist; he doesn’t use his events to recruit. On the contrary, he stages campus visits almost entirely to bump his online traffic. As Jesse Singal wrote for NY Mag about Yiannopoulos’ so-called “Dangerous Faggot” tour of 2016, Milo depends on “a rich reinforcing feedback loop of predictable outrage generated by young college students, outraged coverage of that outrage, and, in turn, ever more attention.”

When he actually appears on a platform, the guy doesn’t have anything to say. After his recent Berkeley free speech stunt descended into farce (Yiannopoulos turned up for 20 minutes, signed autographs, posed for selfies, and left), Lucian Wintrich, one of the advertised attendees, agreed that the event was “a set up from the get go” and that Yiannopoulos had banked on his appearance being disrupted.

All of that makes the “pay him no attention” call rather more persuasive than it otherwise would be.

But it’s still wrong, for several reasons.

First, we can expect Yiannopoulos to make himself impossible to ignore.

He’s a self-described troll – and trolls specialise in forcing victims to respond.

Before visiting Sweden, for instance, Yiannopoulos announced an intention to lead a gay pride rally through a Muslim area. Of course, that march never happened but the proposal illustrates the sensibility he’ll bring to Australia.

If you’re determined to offend, everyone has buttons you can press. How much chill would conservatives show if, say, a leftwing provocateur announced a flag-burning ceremony on the steps of the war memorial?

Whether we like it or not, Yiannopoulos will provoke someone, simply because that’s what Yiannopoulos does.

Second, irrespective of demonstrations or protests, Yiannopoulos will get publicity.

His tour is sponsored by the old school masturbatory aid Penthouse, and promoted by celebrity PR agent Max Markson. Already, he’s all over the Australian media like a nasty rash, with profiles in Fairfax, News and the Daily Mail, and a live appearance on Sunrise. Andrew Bolt – who’s featured Yiannopoulos on his show – is currently promoting a pro-Milo petition instigated by Mark Latham.

In other words, if we don’t react, the meaning of the tour will be framed exclusively by a media remarkably susceptible to the Yiannopoulos snake oil.

Buzzfeed published the Nazi salute clip only a few days ago, along with leaked emails proving, beyond doubt, Yiannopoulos’ connection with white nationalists and racists.

Protest against Milo will at least offer some push back against the media’s tendency to give the suave, Cambridge-accented Yiannopoulos the kind of free pass they’d never extend to a tattooed skinhead.

A successful rally against him will need to highlight the obvious contradiction of his whole project: that, rather than being silenced, Yiannopoulos enjoys a far bigger platform than ordinary Australians, who have to take to the streets to make themselves heard simply because they’re not telling a wealthy demographic what it wants to hear.